Sid and Gino are ahead of Jagr in my eyes. Jagr wasn't a close to a leader on the team when they won cups in the 90s. After losing Saint Ron, his attitude slowly degenerated. Finally, he was called out by Mario in the 2001 playoffs, the last real shot Mario had. He left the organization with a tarnished legacy.

Desiato wrote:Sid and Gino are ahead of Jagr in my eyes. Jagr wasn't a close to a leader on the team when they won cups in the 90s. After losing Saint Ron, his attitude slowly degenerated. Finally, he was called out by Mario in the 2001 playoffs, the last real shot Mario had. He left the organization with a tarnished legacy.

Ron Francis is probably the most underrated star of his generation.

My top 5:

1. Mario2. Sid3. Ron4. Gino5. Jagr

Is this a ranking on personality or what they did while playing in Pittsburgh? If it's a ranking on personality, fine.

mikey287 wrote:Is this a ranking on personality or what they did while playing in Pittsburgh? If it's a ranking on personality, fine.

It's a ranking of what they did in Pittsburgh. You know, win cups, contend for years, etc.. IMO, without Ron, there are no cups in the 90s. He's a top line guy who took a backseat role. Clutch goals, clutch plays, clutch faceoffs, clutch defense, clutch leadership; never faltered in these respects for his entire career.

Why are people taking into consideration Lemieux's accomplishments as an owner? I am not debating that Mario will ever be overtaken as the most important person to the franchise. For example, I'd say Craig Patrick has done more for the franchise in his tenure than Sidney Crosby has.

I'm also not saying that he is, or ever will be, more skilled than Mario. It's fairly obvious that Lemieux is one of the most skilled athletes to ever play professional sports.

However, in terms of on-ice accomplishments, unlike Lemieux Crosby has the chance to undoubtedly be the best player of his generation. Let's say he wins multiple Hart, Richard, Art Ross, Stanley Cups, Conn Smythe's, etc. in his tenure. I think bringing more than 3 or 4 Stanley Cups to Pittsburgh as the Captain would put him at or above Lemieux's level in terms of on-ice accomplishments. I think it's very unlikely to happen, but conditional on the fact that those things do happen, I think Crosby would be the best player to ever play for the Penguins. That is my opinion.

mikey287 wrote:Is this a ranking on personality or what they did while playing in Pittsburgh? If it's a ranking on personality, fine.

It's a ranking of what they did in Pittsburgh. You know, win cups, contend for years, etc.. IMO, without Ron, there are no cups in the 90s. He's a top line guy who took a backseat role. Clutch goals, clutch plays, clutch faceoffs, clutch defense, clutch leadership; never faltered in these respects for his entire career.

Jagr is #2 in individual accomplishments.

That's a pretty slippery slope there. I don't want to take anything away from Francis, but he was never at Jagr's level really...

One was the best player on the planet, one was never the best player on the team. I respect what Francis did here big time, I love the quiet two-way guy that does all the little things with the high attention to detail. But there isn't enough faceoffs in the world for him to take that could broach what Jagr did in his time here. It's simply not close.

Ok, well now you're bringing more into it than just Cups. Yeah, if Crosby rattles off 8 Hart Trophies in a row, sure, he's gonna be in that discussion. Of course. Easier said than done.

Lemieux is in that tier that's above everyone in hockey history ever (with Gretzky, Howe and Orr)...there's a clear and obvious divide between #4 and #5 all-time, it's extremely tough to even get up near there much less make room for a fifth guy on that plateau. He would really have to get a move on if he wants to be in that territory...really quick...that's a hell of a tall order to fill...

mikey287 wrote:Lemieux is in that tier that's above everyone in hockey history ever (with Gretzky, Howe and Orr)...there's a clear and obvious divide between #4 and #5 all-time, it's extremely tough to even get up near there much less make room for a fifth guy on that plateau. He would really have to get a move on if he wants to be in that territory...really quick...that's a hell of a tall order to fill...

I don't think there is much doubt that Crosby will be in that tier when all is said and done. As it is now, his career points per game is behind only 99, 66 and Bossy, while just ahead of Orr. He is still on the upswing of each season being greater ppg than the prior - it won't last forever - but it stands to carry him into the discussion. Others at the top - Messier, Francis, and even Howe, got there by playing an awful lot of games (>1700), finishing with less than 1.1ppg.

The other avenue would be to become the third player to average over an assist per game - Gretzky 1.320 and Lemieux 1.128 - Crosby is presently at .911, which is at least a tenth higher than anyone else in the top 50 in assists, with P. Stastny and Coffey closest at .807, with Oates at .805. (Orr, at .982 apg, 3rd best all time, is 60th on the assist list) Though, that may be tall order, as he is 41 assists below 1.0, and only on a 1.25 apg pace right now - that would only gain 12 assists on that mark over 48 games, but is over a 100 assist pace for 82 games. Similarly, he's 9 points under 2.0ppg for the current season, with 20 games left. Would have to finish near 2.5ppg for the final 20 games to make that up. I'd love to see his drive if he got close to that - he's closed strong late in seasons in the past, and has had extended streaks of over 2.0ppg (including 8 games of 2.5) over the course of this season.

I got sidetracked with respect to the topic at hand. If one can distinguish between the most complete player (87) vs the best player (66) vs contribution to the team (66-68-87-10-71). It's a hell of a blessing to be able to have such debates.

relantel wrote:I don't think there is much doubt that Crosby will be in that tier when all is said and done.

I think that maybe it's difficult to grasp how far and away better those 4 were than the field. Now, I don't know your knowledge of history but I love to discuss it because it's under-discussed. So what I'm about to say isn't to argue or shout, but merely to bring up points of discussion with the hopes that I get response(s).

If you know history well enough, it's obvious who this is...in my opinion, the best two-way forward in the history of the NHL...and I didn't even go into great detail about him. So here's a player that's won the MVP 3x, it's a multi-Cup champ, he's always in the MVP talk nearly his whole career, he represented Canada in international tournaments (best on best, no less)...total package.

So where do you put him? 5? 8? Nah...I got him around 20ish...and it's not for any bias or anything else, but there's a legitimate case that there are 15, 20, maybe even a couple more players better than him all time...the competition in 100+ years of play is hard to fathom!

By the way, for those that are less into history this player is:

Spoiler:

Bobby Clarke.

relantel wrote: As it is now, his career points per game is behind only 99, 66 and Bossy, while just ahead of Orr. He is still on the upswing of each season being greater ppg than the prior - it won't last forever - but it stands to carry him into the discussion. Others at the top - Messier, Francis, and even Howe, got there by playing an awful lot of games (>1700), finishing with less than 1.1ppg.

That's not fair to demote Howe on the basis of PPG. He played in a much better league against much tougher competition and in a much lower scoring era. Lost in that 1.1 ppg is the fact that he finished top-5 in NHL scoring for 21 consecutive years...it's not like he tacked on 7 years of farewell tours (Messier...) he was legitimately dominant player all the time.

It's era-bias to use points per game on a grand scale. You can compare it against peers of the same era as part of the process.

It seems pretty unlikely that the 5 best QBs of all-time have played in the NFL in the last 3 years, it's equally unlikely that Matthew Stafford is in the top 50...

I put the cut-off arbitrarily at 225 yards per game, it left 22 results, of them, only 3 were not active in the past decade: Marino, Fouts, Moon.

That sounds like era bias to me.

Similarly, for players with a points per game average of 1 or better (min. 100 games) we get 62 results.

Of the 62, 65% of them played in the expansion-filled, firewagon days of the 1970's and 1980's...

So, 2 out of every 3 players that are a point per game or better all time, played in about 15-20 years stretch where scoring was abnormally high. That strikes me as strong era bias. I suppose it's possible that Dale Hawerchuk (16th in all-time points per game) belongs an all-time list...but he wouldn't make my top 100. It's feasible that Bernie Nicholls or Mike Rogers (both top-35) were good players, but they were not great on any all-time scale by nearly any worthwhile metric.

I'll leave out the rest as it falls under the same metrics...but Crosby isn't close to that territory nor is he on pace to be...no one is. He'd have to really get a move on, like I said, if he wants to get mentioned anywhere near that top-4. If he can get into that 30ish area with Sakic and Yzerman and Trottier, I'd be more than satisfied...

Someone said Lemieux played most of his career in the era of clutch and grab. I disagree. Clutch and grab began in earnest with the Devils and the neutral zone trap in 1994-95. Lemieux's best years were in the late 80's to early 90's. He played just two years after sitting out 94-95 before retiring, then came back in his mid 30's and had one good half season and one pretty good 3/4 season along with a bunch of injury-plagued years.

Also, I agree with Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin, and Francis as the top 5. However, if we expand to top 10, we should talk about not only Coffey and Murphy as some have mentioned, but also Pierre Larouche, Jean Pronovost, and Randy Carlyle. Larouche is the only NHL player to have 3 seasons of 45+ goals with 3 different teams, including a 50+ goal season with the Pens, although he only played 3+ seasons for them. Pronovost had 4 years of 40+ goals for the Pens. Carlyle was a 4-time All Star and a Norris Trophy winner for 1980-81. A little love for the old-time Pens! Joey Mullen and Kevin Stevens have to be pretty high on the list as well.

If we include everybody that ever played for the Pens, I'd have to put Luc Robitaille even above Malkin at this point. He topped 50 goals 3 times and 100 points 4 times, including a 63 goal, 62 assist season. He finished his 18 yr career with 0.97 ppg, but averaged 1.25 ppg his first 10 seasons (including the strike-shortened 1994-95 with the Pens).

Also, with regards to greatest player ever, I'd put Orr at No. 1, ahead of both Gretzky and Lemieux. No other player so revolutionized the game of hockey as Orr did in inventing the offensive-defenseman role. Orr paved the way for Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, and everyone else who played that role, and thus also ushered in the firewagon era that allowed Gretzky to exceed 200 pts. Orr did all that while also playing spectacularly good defense. His +124 (!!!) in 1970-71 still ranks as the highest plus-minus for any player over a single season in NHL history.

I think most people are assuming Sid will continue to be the player he is today for the next 5 years. Tack on another 8-10 years of Yzerman-esque play and there's no way that Sid is not the 2nd best Penguin. If those 5 years of peak-level play become 7+ years, where he's playing at the level he is now, then he has a chance at entering the conversation with Lemieux, Gretzky, Orr, Howe.

The thing is, its not just about stats. Its about the magical aura surrounding a player within its sport. Guys like Michael Jordan, Lemiuex, Tiger Woods (for a while at least), Joe Montana, etc all go down as legends in their sports because they've accomplished great things. Sid has that in the works. His concussion put a damper on things, but he's at a level in his sport where greatness, as determined by what other people think of him, from the modern fan to the historian, is not out of reach.

mikey287 wrote:He's not really all that close to #2 right now to be honest...there's a pretty sizable gap between him and Jagr...whether anyone wants to admit that or not...

I completely and respectfully disagree.

I think once Crosby passes Jagr's 1079 career point totals with Pittsburgh, Crosby should be called 2nd best Penguin player ever.

Welp, respectfully, just straight point totals is a terrible way to look at anything. Because by that same logic, then Crosby hasn't passed Rick Kehoe yet for all-time Penguins contributions and we all know he blows Kehoe's doors off...

And being that Crosby is over 400 points behind Jagr which is maybe four seasons away, you do pretty much agree. If a player has to spend another 25% of his career trying to catch another, they aren't that close...